When Death comes for you
by insinr8
Summary: They do not speak, for there is no negotiating with the enemy. They do not falter, for they have no fear of the enemy. They do not stop, for they have no mercy for the enemy. They are the Tenno. And you...are the enemy.
1. Excalibur

**Ever wonder what it's like for the average enemy to face down a Tenno and their Warframe?**

 _The Sword_

You have heard the alarms. Intruders have encroached on the area. Your superiors demand a full response, and you oblige.

Weapon in hand, you fall in with your brethren. As one, you make haste towards the problem area.

The voices of your superiors have abruptly gone from irate to outraged terror. One word is barked over your communications, and you immediately know why.

Tenno.

Ancient boogeymen, super soldiers of the Orokin. Your organization has outlasted the Sentients and their drones, the Orokin and their Dax soldiers, the plague and its thralls. They were like you, and they fought en masse. Conflict with them is a numbers game.

Against even a single Tenno however, numbers count for nothing. They have their weapons and warblades, just as you do. But the stories whisper of their void-born sorcery, of unnatural and horrific powers that make a mockery of science and bring all faith into question.

Between your kind and others, the Tenno have disposed of countless enemies. As you tighten your grip on your weapon with hands that have suddenly grown cold, you grimly suspect that you will soon add to the statistic.

But there is no backing out. Your superiors will not countenance retreat. The enemy must be driven out at all cost. And you have been conditioned to obey.

* * *

As the leader of your group approaches the corner, he is suddenly sliced in twain by a crescent of energy. Instinctively, you and your fellows step back, readying your weapons. The next in line peeks around the corner, and is flung away to smash into the opposite wall. Your eyes follow, gazing on his body as it twitches in the throes of death, a long and bright lance of energy protruding from his head.

The posse tears around the corner as one before immediately dispersing, hoping to prolong their survival in the face of the assault. As you bring up the rear, you suddenly see a blurred shape rush at your foremost comrade. It stops half a meter away, then abruptly changes direction and charges another. Again, it halts, and switches targets. In less than a second, it has approached six of your coworkers. Then it stops moving.

It is humanoid, with a horned face. Taller than any human, but with a toned thin build. Firmly clenched in its right hand is an ethereal blade of pure energy. As it straightens up, the six men that it approached fall to pieces, having only time for a partial scream or gasp of pain before their diaphragms separate from their lungs and deprive them of the ability to speak or vocalize.

Others have by now leveled their weapons at the enemy. You join them in unleashing a hail of fire that should perforate it.

The Tenno backflips away from the torrent with contemptuous ease and braces itself. When you and your fellows have shifted fire, it springs forward, twirling that deadly blade and deflecting your gunfire harmlessly away. A few stray shots make it through its defense, but they plink harmlessly off its skin, blocked by a shield system.

You decided to find a better position that is not in the open. As you turn to run, the Tenno turns its dash into a slide that brings it under the weapon of another comrade. Then it pirouettes and performs a sideways slash. A crescent of energy flies through the unfortunate man, and misses you by three meters.

There is a sudden bright flash, and the sound of gunfire is replaced by howls of pain that are being rapidly silenced. As you make it to cover, and another squad enters the area to reinforce you, you see that your group has been blinded, and they are helplessly writhing in the open as the Tenno mercilessly walks up to them and executes them.

You and your reinforcements open fire again. The Tenno once again twirls that damnable sword around, standing its ground as the rain of gunfire leaves it untouched. Then it reverses its grip and plunges the tip of the blade into the ground.

There is another flash, though far less bright than before, and you feel several things blow past you. A few gurgling cries tell you that your comrades have been hit. Instinctively, you turn to see several more men pinned to the wall behind you by more of those spears of energy.

You turn back just as the Tenno blurs forward once more. Your weapon blocks the strike, saving you from death, but at the cost of its integrity and your balance. You tumble backward, and both halves of your weapon clatter to the ground next to you.

More simultaneous screams echo around you as you take a breath and prepare to get up and continue this exercise in futility. But a foot to the chest pins you down.

You look up and into the face of the Tenno, who gazes back with a blank face mask. No eyes meet your gaze. The ancient warrior regards you almost the same way you would look at an insect crawling on the ground. It reverses the blade, and you know no more.

 **Let me know if you want me to continue this kind of thing!**


	2. Ember

**I'm pretty much going by release date, oldest to newest warframes.  
**

 **Read and review!**

 _The Flames_

Thermal sensors are reporting abnormalities. One such item could be a malfunction. But several going off at once in a specific area is typically indicative of a problem. The alarming part is the size of the area, and that the phenomena appears to be moving.

Moving abnormalities are typically threats of some kind, which is why you and several comrades are carrying weapons in addition to the tools required to reset or repair the sensors.

Several other teams of workers are also approaching the area. Over the general communication channel, you hear them switch from the usual gripes about life and work to complaints about rising temperature, and how uncomfortable it is growing the closer they come to the area.

At least one thing is certain: this is no electronics malfunction. The sheer number of sensors firing off alarms made it unlikely in the first place, but you take this as full confirmation.

Suddenly, you hear a sharp bark over the line, and your group halts. A screech of pain, and another voice chimes in with panic.

 _"Tenno!"_

That is the word that rings clear as the lines devolve into screaming.

You exchange glances with your fellow group members before opting to drop your toolkits and supplies in favor of a lighter load of ammunition and weapons, and the accompanying additional mobility. Memories of contact reports from your predecessor give you the sinking suspicion that it will not make any bit of difference.

* * *

Many of the sensors have stopped reporting to the network, according to the operators. Prior to ceasing, they indicated extreme temperatures past the component failure point. Even with your protective gear, the heat is nearly unbearable.

Your group commander is suddenly blown off his feet by an air pocket spontaneously combusting directly in his face. Before you can help him up, a fireball smashes into the ground just past his shoulder. It explodes and covers several of your comrades in fire, producing screams and panicked flailing.

The haze of heat waves partially obscures the Tenno from view, throwing off your aim as you level your weapon at it while running for some form of cover. The gunfire seems to just pass through the Tenno in question as it raises a fist.

The tremor that spreads through the ground gives testament to the monstrous strength of these ancient warriors. But it is the accompanying wave of pure _heat_ that overwhelms you and your allies. The energy wave ionizes the air to the point that it becomes plasma, and expands outward from the instant temperature rise. A solid wall of blazing hot air molecules sweeps over you, and parts of your protective gear ignite in response.

Despite the tremendous heat, the skin on your back feels like ice as panic sets in. You slap frantically at the flames on your body, dropping your weapon in the process.

Reinforcements encroach on all angles, but the Tenno simply raises its arms and spins itself, scattering some kind of mist that covers everyone present. The ambient temperature is more than sufficient to cause the liquid to ignite, but it does not merely burst into flame. The exothermic reaction of the liquid burns far hotter than the air, and the metal and rock in your surroundings begins to warp.

The inside lining of your protective gear lasts but a mere twenty seconds against the semi-molten armor you now wear. Softer metal components fuse into the fabric and transfer the heat directly to your skin. Your shrieks of agony as you flail about in vain to slough off the armor are merely one small addition to the chorus of pain. The Tenno merely stands there in the midst of it all as your comrades are all too preoccupied to even fire their weapons. The few that have not begun to dissolve into slag, that is.

Inside of your suit, the fatty tissues in your limbs and torso ignite. Every centimeter of your nervous system voices its protest in a dull incessant throb of pain, timed to your heartbeat. It becomes a struggle to even see as the sheer amount of pain threatens to white out your vision.

Your legs give out, a combination of muscular immolation and the myelin fatty sheaths of your spinal cord tissue flashing into flame. Raw flesh melds with molten metal and carbonizing fabric, and you drop to your knees. Somehow, there is still enough strength in your ravaged body to remain upright. Vaguely, you are aware of your comrades writhing on the floor as their own bodies become funeral pyres.

The Tenno cocks its head, the crest on its head indicating its focus on you. As the visor of your helmet finally forfeits its integrity, the Tenno generates a fireball in its right palm and flings it at you, with full intent of snuffing out your life.

There is no pain as your eyes explode and your eye sockets dry out and crackle into something resembling the consistency of jerky.

Thank the void for small mercies.

 **I've been deliberately vague as to which faction the victim belongs to, as well as what class of enemy. Do you like this, or would you rather I be more specific in creating scenarios?**


	3. Rhino

**Brute force: if it doesn't solve all your problems, you aren't using enough of it!**

 **Read and review!**

 _The Beast_

A heavy-duty exoskeleton adorns your frame, compensating for the frailty of your cloned body. Your arms and legs are purely mechanical, and your hands themselves are a marvel of engineering, possessing dexterity for weapons handling while also functioning as power-fists.

The armor is what enables you to heft weapons that few others would be capable of using unaided. Surrounded by your grineer brothers and sisters, you feel like an invincible bulwark, that there is nothing capable of posing a threat.

Until you hear the roar.

Heads turn, and masked degenerated faces turn in the direction of the sound. It is a chilling one. Far louder than any animal you know of, it carries the undertone of a challenge to all comers.

And it is immediately accompanied by a desperate cry over your communication line for reinforcements.

At once, you and your brethren form up and begin to move. Lighter units race ahead, while you struggle through the underbrush of Earth's forests, a consequence of your greater size and mass.

Meanwhile, the first tendrils of doubt uncoil within your mind.

* * *

A scrum of stragglers are at your back as you approach the contact area. Your heavy machine cannon held at the ready, you cautiously survey the scene. Bodies are strewn everywhere. Here and there are massive footprints, heavy tread which does not match any grineer soldier. Some of the bodies have been flattened, with their armor cracking at the point of impact.

The amount of force needed to crush that body armor is typically the domain of heavy vehicles or industrial equipment. Even you are not capable of delivering that kind of power.

But a Tenno on the other hand…

Your musings are interrupted by another roar. Before you can turn to face the source, a monstrous impact sends you and your comrades flying.

A tree arrests your trajectory, and you tumble to the forest floor. Your mechanical arms maintained a firm grip on your weapon. Your comrades were not so fortunate. A few rifles clatter to the ground nearby as their former owners roll to a stop on the hardened dirt.

The Tenno is a giant, a solidly built figure even taller than you, and wields a massive hammer with a face as large as your chest. Opposite the face is an axe-head that has clearly seen some use.

As you scramble to your feet, the Tenno effortlessly brings the hammer up from behind before pulverizing the unfortunate grineer rifleman under its foot.

You bring up your weapon and spool it up. Gunfire tears across the clearing as a few of your comrades add to the mix.

Nonchalantly, the Tenno straightens up as even the heaviest caliber bullets ricochet harmlessly off its skin. Gleaming armor plate is obscured as a rocket explodes against the figure, only to reveal a gleaming unblemished surface.

The Tenno hunches slightly before leaping several stories into the air at the grineer who fired the rocket. The soldier backpedals out of the way, evading the flat of the hammer, but losing his balance as the Tenno smashes the ground, shaking the entire forest from the monstrous blow. The hammer is raised and lowered a second time, this time producing a sickening gurgling and snapping sound.

Your comrades have all fully recovered their weapons, and they fan out to your sides while another squad enters the clearing from the other side. As the Tenno steps away from yet another grineer corpse, a storm of gunfire converges from all sides. The hulking brute seems to laugh, a deep rumbling sound, before angling its featureless face plate toward the sky. An ear-splitting roar, identical to the first, stuns you and forces you and your allies to cover your ears.

The Tenno barrels into the opposite group and then unleashes a single vicious back-handed swing with the hammer that scatters the soldiers into the air, crushing them against the trees. Recovering from the swing, it turns, and braces its back leg, before rocketing towards your group.

A few soldiers throw themselves out of the way as the Tenno obliterates a small sapling. Unfazed, it faces your group as you once again bring weapons to bear. Then it raises its right foot, and _stomps._

The ground seems to recoil and spring back, flinging you and your comrades into the air. The shock disorients you as you drop on your back, stunned.

Another grineer lands next to you, face-plate askew. A small moan of pain becomes a sharp cough as the Tenno smashes its hammer on your comrade's back.

You roll onto your hands only to collapse under the impact of the hammer on your shoulder. Flesh and metal tear away, and your vision goes white from shock. A single stricken gasp escapes your throat. As you support yourself with one remaining arm, you look to the side where the Tenno stands. It grabs the mangled debris and peels it away from the hammer head while calmly meeting your defiant gaze with its blank faceplate.

 _"Tenno skoom!"_

The Tenno ignores the insult and turns the hammer around, preparing to use the axe-head.

Armor shatters, sinew and bone give way, and your world spins. You catch a glimpse of your body collapsing forward like a puppet with cut strings. The last thing you hear is a final roar of victory.

 **Which frame do you guys want to see next? Ash, Volt, Loki, Mag, or Trinity?  
**


	4. Trinity

**I honestly thought it would be more of a challenge to write this one. Turns out it was pretty easy.  
**

 **Read and review!**

 _The Savior_

As one of the pre-eminent powers of the Origin System, with uncountable numbers behind you and a long history of war, your Corpus has held firm against all comers. You have ruthlessly crushed the competition in nearly every encounter, absorbed their assets, and claimed their work for yourselves. Those organizations that you couldn't swallow, you have staved off through superior technology and legions of crewmen fighting off threats.

A truism in the pursuit of Profit is that one should eliminate rivals in their infancy. The Board has learned through centuries of dealings that competitors are far easier to squash when they are young, with a laughably small footprint and a nigh-nonexistent base of support. A few of your Corpus's mistakes have matured into significant annoyances.

The Syndicates. Outside organizations that resist the inexorable journey toward Profit out of various misguided agendas. The one that has earned the ire of your employer is that led by his former protégé: Ergo Glast.

The Perrin Sequence, former members of your Corpus who were too weak-willed to accept that Profit can only be achieved at cost. For them, the welfare of others is too great a price to pay. The fools. Profit is always at the expense of others, and those others who fall were simply too weak and unprepared.

* * *

As the overseer of a Corpus operation, the defense of such falls to you when it comes under attack. To your annoyance, the alarm awakens you from the sleep you enjoyed. You grumble as your aides brief you on the situation, idly contemplating a personnel replacement for their incompetence.

One hallmark of incursions from the Perrin traitors is that they are structured as liberation attacks. Many indentured workers toil away in Corpus factories for your benefit, and the Syndicate often raids such facilities to free them from your "oppression." Such foolishness. The workers are kept alive and protected by the might of the Corpus security forces. To be removed from their posts would be a violation of their contracts, and would open them up to contractual asset forfeiture. It costs you little to replace the lost workers with their Corpus. If the father will not uphold the contract, then the son shall do so.

Still, while you can easily replace the losses, Chairman Bek will be annoyed at the production hiccups. Your best option to avoid becoming the target of his annoyance is to eliminate the raiders and prevent their further interference.

Clad in a powered exoskeleton for your protection, you are accompanied by two Bursas, a swarm of MOAs, and a squad of technicians. You make your way to the problem area, and note to your satisfaction that the traitors are being rapidly pushed back and away from the critical areas. A stray shot from a Perrin operative glances off your shield systems, and you raise your customized Detron and blast the fool off his feet. Another fool steps forward and grabs their fallen comrade, dragging them backward behind a large shipping container. You snort. Hiding will do them no good. They will all be exterminated sooner or later.

Then you see it. One of _THEM._ A Betrayer.

A mere Syndicate raid is rarely cause for concern. But an incursion backed by the Tenno is a catastrophe. You have read such event reports before, and they inevitably conclude with a total write-off of the facility. Suddenly, you have a feeling that you are about to become just another subtraction in the asset column.

The Bursas lock onto the Tenno, and slide their way over to engage the priority threat. But the Tenno raises a feminine hand and a pulse of energy sweeps over the two units. Both are raised into the air, helplessly flailing to try and reorient themselves to attack. The cursed Perrin operatives all turn and concentrate their fire against the two units, overwhelming their shields and rendering them inoperative.

The MOAs surge forward in that short period, attempting to close the distance and draw a good bead on the invaders. But the Tenno leaps forward and spreads its arms, offering itself as a more tempting target.

Your initial thoughts that the Tenno was foolishly self-sacrificing are cut off when the energy bolts are absorbed by the Betrayer and tendrils of energy lash out from it, striking down the MOA units in rapid succession.

With much of your autonomous force eliminated, the crewmen of the facility are forced to step forward. One technician next to you barks an order to the rest to increase the power to shield generators. Your men push forth as their forms begin to shine brightly with shielding force, harmlessly warding off the enemy gunfire.

But that cursed Tenno acts again, raising its other hand and catching your entire force with another pulse. A wave of nausea and weakness hits you and your men, halting the push and rendering them easy targets for the entrenched Perrin.

You begin to backpedal as your men are taken down. A retreat would seem to be in order. Then you turn to the sound of footsteps as reinforcements arrive from multiple directions. Your confidence rises again at the sight of multiple Bursas. You turn once again to survey the area. While the losses have been regrettable, you still have a chance at stalling the incursion. Most of the Syndicate force is down, with their bodies strewn across the floor.

Then the Tenno moves once more, pooling energy in its hand before slamming it into the ground. A bright wave of energy sweeps across the floor. The fallen Perrin scramble to their feet, and horror dawns on you.

The Perrin are their own reinforcements.

As if empowered by the Betrayer, they contemptuously sweep aside your reinforcements, outright ignoring missile fire from the Bursas before shredding them with their weapons. Where they had previously been forced to hide behind cover, they openly pace forward, shrugging off the assault force.

You panic, and turn to run. But the Tenno drops in front of you and levels its weapon. A single monstrous impact overloads your armor's shields and leaves you writhing on the floor as it twitches from system shutdown. You have only one moment to glimpse down the barrel of the weapon before the Tenno pulls the trigger a second time.

At least you won't have to report this to Frohd Bek.

 **In the lore, the word "Corpus" seems to translate to mean "Family." Kinda gives the Corpus a space mafia feel, doesn't it?**

 **Vote on the next one: Loki, Ash, Mag or Volt?**


	5. Ash

**I hope you guys like this one. Read and review!**

 _The Shadow_

One of the problems with being stationed on the frontier is combating the infestation. A plague of Orokin origin, the oppressors lost control of it at some point, and it swept across the Origin System, consuming man and machine as it moved. At one point, your brothers and sisters joined with the Corpus in a rare moment of cooperation to beat back and torch the infestation, reclaiming some precious territory.

The halcyon days of such cooperation are long gone. With the Infestation more or less under control, you and the Corpus have gone back to being enemies and competitors, scrabbling for resources and scavenging the technology left behind by the oppressors.

Oh, and dealing with the Tenno who killed them.

Ancient warriors from times long past, their motivations are as mysterious as they are detrimental to Grineer superiority. You only need to read the casualty reports of their raids to understand that.

You grumble to yourself, eying the clock and knowing that you will soon be on shift. This posting is, in your opinion, a pointless one. The station has long since been stripped of any useful resources. The last time it was operational was before the Old War. But the damned Tenno occasionally raid the place and have drawn the interest of high command. So they stationed you and your regiment here.

Well, nothing for it. An abandoned and decrepit mining construct is certainly a better assignment than an active combat zone. Cloning indoctrination aside, you have no desire to throw yourself into the meat grinder just yet. There will be time enough for that later, once you have distinguished yourself enough to earn heavy assault armor.

You grab your Karak rifle, and make for the door. Time to head out on patrol.

* * *

Your platoon commander is in a foul mood, demanding to know where the shift you're relieving is. You recognize a ranking corporal from the other shift protesting his ignorance, along with a few comrades who look similarly confused.

A sergeant looks at the duty roster, and quickly determines that the missing troops were all assigned to one particular sector of the station.

The old infested section.

You eyeball your comrades, and tighten your grip on your weapon. Incidents like this have happened before. They usually resulted in a repopulation order after the previous unit ended up wiped out by the plague monsters.

The commander makes his decision, and announces it over the communication lines. The rest of the regiment will soon be on alert and making their way to the area. But you are heading in to scout it out.

Soon afterward, your platoon arrives on scene. Sure enough, the bodies of your comrades lay strewn across the area.

But something isn't right. No shell casings. No body fluids aside from small drops of blood. Nothing like the mottled twisted flesh of the infested monstrosities. You hear confusion in the sergeant's voice. Whatever killed these men wasn't the infested.

Instinctively you fan out, everyone silencing each other and looking around for signs of the threat. Minutes pass, and suddenly, you hear the dull thud of armor on the station floor paneling.

The platoon commander barks over the line, demanding to know what the source of the sound was. Seconds go by, and the sergeant does not respond. He can't.

Not with the impromptu tracheotomy he just had.

A few murmurs, and the formation tightens up as you still move across the area. Infested or no, something really is here.

Several shrieks of pain cut through the silence. You and others turn toward the sources. Some of your platoon members are bent over, bleeding and in pain. The squad medic reaches out and pulls one of the objects causing such distress. It is a metal star, immensely sharp with a hole in the center.

And it somehow managed to hit the trooper in question through the gaps in his body armor.

The medic comes to the same conclusion in the same instant as you. No Grineer or Corpus uses throwing stars as weapons. The only ones who do…

"Tenno sk-uagh!"

A shadow appears out of nowhere, spearing the medic in the throat with a dagger of some sort.

You are stunned. How did that thing get so far inside the formation?!

Those with faster reflexes than yourself turn and try to open fire. The shadow withdraws its dagger and drops something on the floor that explodes into smoke. The crossfire misses, and the smoke clears in seconds to show nothing except a dying medic.

The platoon commander snarls into his communicator from a room away, demanding to know the reason for the gunfire. Midway through his demand, a sharp gurgling sound announces his demise over the line. But there is no accompanying gunfire. It would seem that his squad died at roughly the same time he did.

You share a look with your wingman. How could one Tenno silently wipe out an entire squad?

Reddish shadows abruptly spring into existence behind some of your squad members. Each one grabs your comrades, pulls their heads back, and swipes a razor-sharp blade across their throats. You instinctively fire at the face of the shadow behind your wingman, knowing even then that it is far too late to save him.

But the gunfire passes through it, and the shadow disperses into smoke. You back up to a pillar and frantically reload your weapon before it dawns on your that you are the last man alive of your squad.

And you still haven't actually seen the Tenno that has been killing you off.

You go for your communicator, only to see another of those throwing stars embedded in the device. The horror of the situation sinks in. You are alone, with no backup and no way of requesting any reinforcements.

Seconds go by, and you twitch in every direction towards every odd noise, desperately searching for the enemy. There is a growing feeling on the back of your neck, and you finally can't resist it. You spin around, only to come face to face with the shadowy figure.

Your trigger finger contracts of its own accord, but it only responds with a single click. Dumbfounded, you spy another of those damned stars protruding from the action.

The Tenno stands there with its arms crossed, and flicks its wrist. Pain erupts from your throat, and a sharp piece of metal cuts through your gauntlets as you drop your weapon and instinctively reach for your trachea. Blood fountains from your neck and you find yourself rapidly losing consciousness. The darkness encroaching on your vision as blood drains from your brain shrouds the Tenno, hiding it from sight.

As if it needed help to disappear.

 **I imagined Ash being played out like Batman in the Arkham series stealth segments. Except he kills people.**

 **Who's next? Volt, Mag, or Loki?**


	6. Mag

**Took a while this time because I just had corrective eye surgery. But now I can use my computer without blinking like a strobe light.**

 _The Flux_

The power grid is acting up again, and you have been dispatched with your fellow technicians to troubleshoot. Yet another day of tedium in the Corpus machine.

As you heft your tools and equipment, you grumble at each other, hypothesizing the cause of the trouble. Often it's the same thing, day in and day out. Insufficiently shielded cables, failure to reset the breakers, a sudden surge blowing out a transformer, local brown-out because some idiot stressed the grid with giant piece of hardware without going through proper procedure, the list goes on.

And regardless of your efforts, you know that faults will continue to show through, and your crew will receive all the blame from the higher ups.

The Foreman accesses a system interface and begins to diagnose the problem. A series of nodes in a large spherical area are on the fritz. Likely a reactor containment issue, with radiation bleeding through the insulation and inducing extra current.

You are about to agree with his quick diagnosis when you recall that the area in question is nowhere near any power source. It is the bulk storage area.

Another crewman wonders if something energetic is being stored in there, and spontaneously lost containment.

A few men depart to check the area. Minutes pass by as the Foreman continues monitoring the network. More nodes are now beginning to malfunction, showing the zone expanding. You lean in closer to the screen, frowning behind your helmet. An expansion would imply that something is indeed there, but the men who went to look haven't called anything in.

The Foreman comes to the same conclusion and calls out over the line, asking for a status update. There is no answer besides static. Another call, and this time a sharp screech tears through the line, causing you and your fellows to instinctively clap your hands to the sides of your head.

It is a partial transmission from one of the departed crew. The voice is panicky, and very heavily distorted, barely making it through some form of interference. But one word cuts across: Tenno.

The Foreman reacts instinctively, slapping the alarm next to the panel and marking the area on the map for reinforcements to move in. And then indoctrination kicks in, overriding your instincts of self-preservation even as they scream for you to turn tail and run in the opposite direction of the Tenno threat.

* * *

The closer you get to the area of disturbance, the more your electronics begin to spazz out. Pondering what sort of Tenno you are facing, your team stops dead at the sight of the departed crew.

Only the shattered remains of the visors tell you that these bloody, compacted, semi-liquefied masses of bone and tissue used to be your coworkers. Something _squashed_ them from the outside in to unrecognizable bits. The mangled helmets thankfully contain the brain matter and eyeballs that you know are in that mess somewhere, though synovial and cranial fluid mix with the blood and waste into a putrid coagulating slime.

The force is as sudden as it is irresistible. You and your team are yanked off your feet and through a thin plasteel wall. The impact throws you for a loop, and it is a moment before you scramble back up.

The Tenno has a bulbous face, with swirling lines of metal around each arm. The face itself is an ever-shifting display of hues. It is a thin figure, almost lanky and fragile. Yet its appearance does not fool you. It is a Tenno, and still far stronger and tougher than any normal human.

You raise your weapon and give the order to fire. But just as several triggers are pressed, the Tenno lifts a hand in your direction. The bolts of energy from your weapons strike out at the figure, only to reverse course and tear through your team.

Miraculously, the short burst of redirected fire only grazes you. You turn to dive away from your wounded comrades while more Corpus men arrive on the scene, hoping that you can escape the affected area.

The Tenno raises its arm upward, and snaps its fingers. It appears to be a useless gesture, but when you try to fire your weapon again, you are staggered as an unseen force shorts out your shields. Your aim settles, and you pull the trigger, but your weapon refuses to fire. It is jammed and malfunctioning.

As you stare dumbfounded at your weapon, your actions are mimicked by the rest of the Corpus with weapons in hand. Meanwhile, the Tenno lazily throws out a hand in another direction and clenches a fist before yanking back toward itself. Several cries echo out, and a goodly amount of Corpus reinforcements come sprawling into view, propelled by an unseen force.

You suddenly have an epiphany. Magnetism. The Tenno is using magnetic fields. Such things would easily explain the power grid disturbances and the effects on your shields and weapons. You and your comrades are wearing a significant amount of ferrous material on your persons, leaving you vulnerable to such forces.

Unfortunately, the realization does nothing to help you defeat this enemy. You drop your Tetra and draw your Prova baton, sprinting towards the Tenno to try and subdue it, knowing even now that it is useless.

The Tenno raises both hands into the air. Your feet leave the ground, and you find yourself suspended along with every other Corpus. Then you feel an immense pressure all around your body as the Tenno bends its elbows and brings claw-like hands down level with its shoulders, as if in preparation to clap. You realize you are about to experience the same crushing demise as your earlier comrades.

Then the hands come together. Your last thought is the hope that you die instantly. You are not disappointed.

 **Only two more of the original frames, and then I move on to newer ones. Loki, or Volt?**


	7. Loki

**Now that school is over for a bit, I can focus on my stories again.**

 **Read and Review!**

The _Trickster_

You have fallen far from grace in the Empire. Once, you were a promising officer with a unit at your beck and call. Your forces maintained a mission success rate above the norm, and you had word that your unit might receive the honor of being inducted into the Kuva Guard force.

Then THAT thing appeared. A Tenno. Sweeping aside your men with casual ease, it made mincemeat of your proud unit, and caused you to fail a critical mission. The queens were not pleased.

Now, you make your way in the Penal Battalions, with a permanent brand of failure marked on your forehead. Your face, behind your mask, is locked in a perpetual snarl of rage at the unfairness of the universe. How much has been stolen away from you by that damned Tenno?

You have not lost your aptitude for command, but your methods have changed. Your men do not follow you out of respect or loyalty. They themselves are failures, criminals or batch rejects, with little left to lose. They once eyed you with contempt. Now they do so with fear. Your wrath has become legendary in your unit, whispered about out of your earshot, lest they bring it upon themselves.

The Penal Battalions are the last chance of redemption for the Grineer Empire. The final opportunity to use up the dregs before disposing of the refuse. Your unit has been sent out on many a suicidal mission with one objective: eliminate the Infestation.

That ancient plague weapon, unleashed by the Orokin against the Sentients, themselves another weapon of Orokin creation. It festered in the Origin System and must be pushed back, regardless of the cost.

And you have been sent out to do it, or die trying.

* * *

It is a testament to your tactical prowess that your unit has only lost three men to the plague today. Though they may despise and fear you, they know well that only your orders separate them from being consumed and mutated into the monstrosities you fight.

You order your squad Ballista to target a capacitor while using your Ignis cannon to create a fire barrier. The capacitor exploding creates a shower of arcing energy that splits off another portion of the damned infested monstrosities. It buys you a precious reprieve as your bombard lieutenant and heavy gunner sergeant safely shred the enemy at range.

The primal fear of fire is ingrained in most living beings, and it has served you well over the years. The heat from the self-igniting material scours and burns almost everything it comes into contact with. Your choice armament is even more effective against the plague, preventing regeneration and disabling even those most ancient of horrors.

Still, there is something odd today. The infested are more driven than usual, clumsy and frantic. Desperate even. Something in the distance is driving them out. A nagging feeling rises up the back of your neck.

The others in the squad are looking at you questioningly. Normally, you'd have ordered them forward, to press on and eliminate all trace of the Infestation. But you have yet to order them up.

Another group of enemies moves into your crosshairs, and your team sets up once again.

But this time, your gunfire goes right through them.

 _What?!_

You are startled. It takes a moment for the reason to sink in. You have seen this phenomenon before. Enemies who appear solid, but whose appearance is disrupted by gunfire.

It is like that time when your original unit was wiped out.

You turn to give a warning to your Ballista only to freeze at the sight of your most hated enemy.

The Tenno has the same horns, curving outwards and down before angling back inward. From the shape of the helmet down to the coloration, there can be no doubt. This is the same Tenno that was responsible for your fall from grace.

In the distance behind you, you hear the shriek of the Ballista being beset upon by the monstrosities. You ignore it as your Ignis cannon spews forth fire and fury against the Tenno scum.

But it merely passes through harmlessly. The Tenno does not move, though it appears to shimmer in response.

You release the trigger while stopping the heavy gunner from spooling up her weapon. It is a fake. A holographic clone, born from their void sorcery. The real Tenno is elsewhere.

The Bombard gasps and wheezes before collapsing to the ground behind you. You whirl back around, but there is nothing in sight. No sign of the Tenno.

A sudden pulse of energy washes over your squad. Your vision turns white. When it returns, you discover that you are no longer holding your weapon. Instinctively, you draw your Sheev backup blade. All around you are multiple copies of the Tenno. Your squadmates seem to have vanished. With a snarl, you lash out at one of the Tenno clones, and it flickers out of existence as your blade passes through its throat. Another clone slashes you from behind, and you fall to the ground.

You roll out of the way and scramble up before throwing yourself at that clone, tackling it to the ground and stabbing it in the eye.

Then suddenly, it seems like your awareness pops. Before you is not a Tenno clone, but one of your own men in his death throes. You scramble backward and look around. The rest of your unit is dead, dying, or stunned with what they have done. Realization sprouts in your mind. The Tenno did something to make your weapons disappear and also messed with your perception to force the unit to attack one another.

You spin around, eyes passing over the holographic Tenno decoy standing in the center of it all. Then the decoy moves.

Before you know it, a hand snakes over your mouth while a knife traces a straight line between your carotid arteries. Blood fountains from your neck as the Tenno pushes you down. There seems to be a sound reminiscent of laughter in the distance. And it grows louder as your vision dims.

A fitting reception in hell for the joke that was your career.

 **Volt is next after this, then some newer frames.**


	8. Volt

**Volt gets his chance to shine. After him, it's a choice between Nyx and Frost.**

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 _The Dynamo_

It is time. Time to take the fight to the Tenno themselves. Your ship is part of an armada ready to assault one of the Relay Stations from which those accursed void-born monstrosities lord over the system. After many long years of suffering their attacks, the Corpus have become fed up with their interference. Or at least, such is the line from Nef Anyo.

In reality, you suspect that this little excursion does not have the full support of the Board of Directors. It is only the ire of the religiously-devoted Prophet of Profit that has been raised. After all, the recent development of the Bursas as anti-Tenno weapons was not quite the game-changer Nef billed it to be. Those things were laughably easily disabled by a Tenno known to have no form of damaging ability, and destroyed by the Perrin Sequence, of all people.

Chairman Frohd Bek was the one who suffered that attack, but he is quite disapproving of antagonizing the Tenno. The occasional raid has been an annoyance, but all-out war with the Orokin super soldiers would be catastrophic. It would surely invite the attention of the Grineer as well.

But nobody asked you for your opinion on things, and it is your misfortune to work for the incredibly narcissistic Nef Anyo. And so here you are, standing on board one of many ships ferrying the Razorbacks to their first deployment.

A light flickers on in your peripheral vision, and you grab your helmet and toolkit before heading out to your shift. Nothing for it. Just hope that you make it through this alive.

* * *

Your floor boss shares your opinion of the mission, though neither of you dare voice it. Even if you are both overseers of the maintenance force for the ship, there are eyes and ears everywhere.

The Corpus frowns heavily on non-shop talk while on duty, which leaves you both with little to do except mind the security and technical displays. Normally, a ship this large would have plenty of maintenance for you to occupy yourselves with, but this one was prepared for a deployment. The peons under you have addressed all the problems you would otherwise have to fix.

Well, all except one, apparently. A security alert and a hull integrity alert flash at the same time. It seems someone has decided to attack the ship. But what startles you is the speed with which the intrusion marker blitzes from the exterior compartment towards the core of the ship.

And towards you and your partition.

You have seen this pattern before. The speed likely indicates a Tenno, though it is even faster than most in proceeding straight for the core. And in targeting the core, the Tenno is aiming for sabotage.

Your blood runs cold. Nef Anyo is most intolerant of any failure, no matter where the fault truly lies.

You slam a hand on the intercom toggle and scream a warning to your crew to get to positions. They have just barely settled in when a door opens and a bolt of energy arcs around the room, flash-frying several of your men.

The Tenno has a bulbous forehead, and what appear to be three rings around each of its upper arms. Lightning courses around its outstretched arm, residual traces of the lethal bolt that tore through your men. Others on your crew turn toward the Tenno and prepare to open fire. But the Tenno brings its arms in across its chest before spreading them to the sides. A barrier of energy expands in front of it, and the gunfire from Flux rifles and Tetras is harmlessly absorbed.

Meanwhile, the Tenno takes out a pistol and fires through its own shield. Such a small weapon should not do nearly as much damage as you observe, with a single shot effortlessly piercing through a Corpus Technician's faceplate and skull.

Your floor boss orders reinforcements to make haste to the core while you rally your off-shift people toward the door, hoping to get out there and block the Tenno from completing its sabotage mission. Your Opticor whines and discharges an immensely powerful blast, and you are gratified to see that the shield has fizzled out.

But the Tenno is not there. In the blink of an eye, it has already passed through the opposite set of doors, toward the cooling cells.

With that speed, there is no point whatsoever in trying to catch up to it. The Tenno will have to return to the central area, however. And you order your men to spread out and defend the control booth.

However, you have dearly miscalculated its speed. Just as you finish giving the order, something bowls you over and passes through the door. A loud scream is interrupted by a distinct crackling noise, and you suspect that what you just heard was the demise of your floor boss. Seconds tick by as you scramble to your feet and back up from the door, hoping to have some kind of opportunity to fire again at the cursed Tenno warrior. Reinforcements begin pouring into the room from all sides. A faint bit of hope wells up within you. If the Tenno is the least bit too slow, you and your allies might have a chance to prevent everything.

But a sudden scream on the other side of the room crushes that. The Tenno has fired yet another bolt of lightning and now sheer numbers work against you. The cascading effect of its lightning attack allows it to cripple a sizeable portion of your new team. The Tenno then blitzes toward the generator, which has now exposed its cores. You suddenly feel like energy is gathering and focusing itself, and you have a dreadful premonition. One that you are far too slow to stop.

The Tenno levitates, and compresses its form into a fetal position. The energy surge you detected is building towards a critical mass. You involuntarily take a step backward, and close your eyes. Your final coherent thought is that at least you will be spared Nef Anyo's wrath.

The Tenno's void-energy explosion is surely painful enough.


	9. Frost

**A mighty glacier. Slow and steady smashes your face.**

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 _The Cold_

Europa, of all places. A frozen wasteland nominally owned by the Corpus. You have been sent in after intercepting communications from that merchant cult that they have discovered something very important. Naturally, the message they sent was also prevented from reaching its destination. No point in allowing the Corpus access to reinforcements, after all.

The dropships swoop down toward the entrance to the Corpus ice base. You and your company of elite soldiers descend and regroup while the ships climb back toward the fleet in space. This is a vital mission that you have been entrusted with. The level of communication implied that the greedy wastrels uncovered something of Orokin manufacture. Any technology from the oppressors must be recovered to strengthen the Grineer empire.

As for the Corpus, they are to be disposed of.

* * *

Your elation with the mission you've been tasked with has slowly bled off into apprehension. As proud as you are to have been given this assignment, you are not so proud as to ignore when things seem odd. The oddity in question is the near total absence of any Corpus. Only a dead crewman here or there.

You pause for a moment to confer with your lieutenant. This outpost had a large garrison of men, according to the intelligence report. And your arrival should have tripped some proximity alarms. By all rights, you should have been wading through firefights in the enclosed icy corridors.

But there has been nothing. Unease is settling in. Even your men feel it, that something is wrong with this situation.

Tamping down on the adverse feelings, you bark orders to continue forward.

The tunnels go on for a while. And it takes time for your unit to proceed. The heat sink effect of your armor is beginning to wear off, and now you're feeling the first touches of the cold from Europa. You grimace slightly. Better hurry things up, or at least find the environmental controls for the tunnels.

Abruptly, a forward squad calls out contact. The rest of your unit flick off the safeties of your weapons in preparation. But there is no gunfire. You are called forward, and you are met with a peculiar sight.

The figure looks like an ice statue, shaped like a Corpus crewman, with the unmistakable boxy helmet and a Flux rifle clutched in one hand. The crewman's arms are held up like he's attempting to ward off something. You take your Sheev and experimentally swing at the figure's left wrist. It separates with ease, revealing completely frozen tissue.

The man was flash frozen. Somehow, even in spite of his protective gear, this man was completely frozen in an instant.

You blink, and share an incredulous look with your lieutenant. What in the world did the Corpus discover?

There is an abrupt chill, even through your armor, and a wave of energy sweeps over the scout squad. Half of a second later, the energy forms enormous ice crystals that stab and pierce clean through ferrite armor plate. You are stunned by the sudden attack.

The ice sublimates into mist astonishingly quickly, but the men who were skewered do not drop when released. They _crumble_ to pieces, trace amounts of blood leaking from flash-frozen wounds.

Your lieutenant was looking in another direction while you were distracted. _"Tenno Skoo-"_ something smashes into him, sending him flying into your view. He slides on his back against the icy tunnel floor for a couple meters before attempting to get to his feet.

His attempt is cut off as his body freezes in place, one hand supporting his body on the ice while the other is outstretched, reaching out almost like a final plea for help.

You spin around, already knowing what it is.

A Tenno. Those damned mongrels uncovered a Tenno, and some fool woke it up.

It is covered in white, with what looks almost like cage bars on the crown of its head. And its armor makes it appear to be dressed in a large thick white overcoat. Clenched in its right hand is what appears to be a metal torch handle and basket, with an enormous chunk of pure white ice.

You vaguely hear the footfalls of your company as you instinctively raise your Strun and open fire. The Tenno ignores your gunfire, shards of ice exploding from its body where your shots hit. Your men appear from around the corner, and they prepare to join you.

But the Tenno crosses its arms and then spreads them to the sides. The air itself freezes into sheets and panels of ice, forming a protective dome around the Tenno. The panels themselves appear to be suspended and held together by void energy.

And in the process of forming the dome, you are flung away into the front ranks of your company.

You scramble to your feet, and join your men in unleashing a fusillade of gunfire that smashes against the dome. But this ice is inexplicably much tougher than normal. Some eager soldiers rush forward to push into the dome and attack the Tenno, but they are slowed down by a vortex of cold air swirling inside. The shock of the sudden cold gives the Tenno enough time to swat them aside with its icy mace with a single swing.

Then the Tenno raises a hand, and the same icy vortex inside the dome explodes outward. Ambient water vapor flash freezes while being pushed forward, forming a massive blizzard wave that coats everything and everyone it approaches. Instinctively, you and your men cease firing and raise your arms in a futile attempt to ward off the impromptu storm from your faces, as your flesh freezes up beneath your armor.

You find yourself trapped in the same pose as that one unfortunate Corpus crewman, and now the Tenno slowly marches forward. You desperately try to move your body, but you feel nothing. Your nerves are deadened from the ice wave. You are literally frozen still, unable to move or speak, as the Tenno slowly closes on you.

Mercifully, there is no pain when the mace shatters your body.

 **Nyx, the Mistress of the Mind is next. Then, it's a choice between Saryn and Banshee.**


	10. Nyx

**One reviewer had an interesting suggestion: why not make a chapter from the view of a boss in a boss fight?**

 **I might consider it, if I can figure out a way to make it somewhat realistic and believable in the confines of Warframe Lore. Maybe at the 20 chapter mark. I don't know if I'll go for it, honestly. A boss-fight with four frames will take a lot of stretching to work in all four abilities for each frame while making it seem like an epic fight where the boss poses a legitimate threat.**

 **Read and review!**

 _The Insanity_

If there is one thing the Corpus shares with the Grineer, it is the emphasis on quantity over quality. Regardless of how much the Corpus looks down on the degenerating clone race, they have the same tendency to simply throw manpower at a problem until it goes away.

Unfortunately for you, this is one such example of that tendency. And thus, you find yourself on a dropship heading for an artifact that your superiors want to get their hands on. The problem with that objective is a very determined Tenno that has been stubbornly holding out against waves of reinforcements for over thirty minutes.

Each and every Tenno warrior has their own peculiarities and abilities. Some are lightning fast, attacking in the blink of an eye and obliterating resistance before it can be raised. Or they are maddeningly evasive, impossible to draw a bead on without a profligate expenditure of artillery. Others are far more solidly built, functioning as a hard wall that countless unfortunate individuals smash against to no avail.

And then there are the more esoteric ones. This Tenno in particular seems to be in the lattermost category. Previous sightings of the ancient super soldier yielded scant intelligence of its capabilities.

Though one thing is unmistakably clear: it is female. And it seems particularly attached to one of the earliest Tenno seen in history, the one that specialized in swordsmanship. One might consider them to be siblings, given how often they have been observed near each other.

Or how this Tenno is defending a cryopod containing a reported duplicate of its "brother."

You yourself are quite familiar with the strength of a familial bond. Your service to the likes of Frohd Bek spares your Corpus from wage enslavement, and you would persevere through any adversity if it would save them from hardship.

In that sense, out of the men who accompany you on the dropship, perhaps you have a better understanding of the Tenno down below than anyone else. Not that it is likely to save you.

* * *

The most troubling reports from the preceding waves of Corpus men and machines is the fact that some of them have apparently turned traitor. They have trained their guns on comrades, turning on each other like ravenous animals, with no rhyme or reason apparent.

A whimsical and highly unlikely thought momentarily occurs to you: perhaps others _do_ , in fact, understand the Tenno's apparent familial devotion.

But such a thing is impossible for the Corpus machines. Their logic structures and subroutines do not take into account fraternal or familial bonds. As combat machines, they are utterly devoid of consideration for emotion, and simply follow orders and targeting priority listings from above, with a single-minded drive to accomplish their directive to neutralize the enemy.

And yet they have also fallen prey to this phenomenon. The void sorcery of the Tenno is truly potent to convert unfeeling unthinking robotic enemies into allies.

Your first concern is to probe the area of effect. Surely the Tenno can only afflict so many enemies, or reach only so far. You link up to several MOAs on your technical display, and observe their visual and electronic signal feeds as they race off toward the Tenno.

Others on the dropship are scant steps behind them, while you hang back with an abundance of caution. A minute passes before you suddenly see the MOAs halt forward progress and begin targeting each other. One of your comrades curses over the radio, and Tetra gunfire can be observed in the MOA visual feeds as it indiscriminately mows down the compromised units.

Behind you, a pair of Bursas drop free from another ship and pass you by. You quickly jack into their feeds, and observe curiously as they link up with your comrades and race toward the Tenno. Soon, you can see the ancient warrior in question.

She sits cross-legged atop the cryopod, suspended in mid-air by an energy field. The field in question simply absorbs all gunfire.

This presents a problem. Your secondary orders are to destroy the cryopod in order to prevent yet another ancient Orokin super soldier from running rampant in the galaxy. But that requires getting past the field.

Still, you estimate that the Tenno can only do so much while simultaneously maintaining that field. And it seems that strange affliction takes time for the Tenno to use, seeing how your comrades managed to close into visual range.

You call for two quick additional waves. The first one being primarily robotic, and sacrificial, followed by the next with Coombas, Scrambuses, and Bursas. Exhaust the Tenno enough to breach the shield, and maybe take it out as well.

The suggestion is agreed to, and you spend several more minutes waiting anxiously for reinforcement. You have shut off the feed to the Bursas. The Tenno would take over them, and use them to eliminate your wave. They are doomed units.

The next waves drop, and you are comforted to see that a Scrambus accompanies them. You fall in, safe under the aegis of their canceller aura. Surely this will protect you from that mind-bending affliction.

It is only when you get within visual range that you realize you've made a mistake. You assumed that the Bursa units would turn on each other. Admittedly, that was a safe assumption, since you hadn't seen anything do otherwise.

But the two previous bursas are very much active. And both are aiming at your group. Moreover, they seem to have been empowered by the Tenno.

A few unfortunate men outside the range of the Scrambus are cut down by the Bursas, before they unexpectedly enter the canceller radius. There is confusion as the units suddenly spasm, and your group destroys them to be safe. But then bolts of energy ripple through your formation, emanating from the Tenno's raised hand. At the same time, your former comrades from before rise up from behind cover to take aim at you.

The Scrambus panics, and overloads his canceller in a large burst to disrupt the ambush. It succeeds, and the affected men writhe while grasping their heads, as if fighting some voice in their minds.

The Tenno is reacting, however. And it curls up into a ball while the energy aura surrounding it intensifies. Perhaps the backlash of its ability being cancelled is straining it. You urge everyone to pour fire against the barrier, spreading out and closing in around it.

And then it spreads its arms.

In your haste to prevail, you failed to consider where the absorbed energy would go. According to the laws of physics, it must go somewhere.

The energy wave smears you and your reinforcements against the floor. Laying there paralyzed in pain, you can do nothing to resist as the Tenno over to you and grasps your head, aligning your helmeted gaze with its four golden-rimmed eyelets.

How typical for a Tenno. Always looking down on you.

 **Up next: Saryn or Banshee? I'm going by release date, so unfortunately, we won't get to Valkyr ("Ragekitty Prime" lol) for another six chapters. But we will get there.**


	11. Banshee

**Apologies for the delay. School during the day, work in the afternoon, five hours of sleep, that's my schedule. I only have time during the weekend to work on this.  
**

 _The Sound_

There's something to be said for the sounds of machinery. Any engineer or maintenance worker will tell you that the worst sound of all aboard a ship is silence. That is a telltale sign that something has gone horribly wrong. Perhaps a bearing seized, or a pump froze, or another critical system has been otherwise brought to a sudden stop because of component failure.

In space, everything is subject to the mercy of machines, and those who maintain them. Even the most arrogant of the ground troops in the Grineer Empire know to respect the maintenance crew of their ships. Many are those who have fallen prey to the wrath of an engineer.

Where others have sought the thrill of ground combat, you have had more long-reaching aspirations. Possessed of greater intellect and foresight than your batch brethren, you saw no future in being a member of the Grineer infantry. Oh certainly, you have been made to participate in training, but you aimed for a more cushy assignment as a life-support technician aboard a Formorian dreadnought.

Your post onboard the fearsome dreadnought means you are at a far lower risk of dying than even other naval crews. The worst threat to your life and livelihood is drawing the notice of your commander, who reports directly to Councilor Vay Hek.

But your commander is firmly aware of your value, and is not given to the same sadism and corruption as the infamous councilor. So your days mostly consist of routine tedium as you organize periodic maintenance with your subordinates to keep the ship in operation.

Today, however, there is a disturbance in the routine. Something has assaulted the ship. The intrusion was discovered by one of your roving repair crews, who were investigating an atmospheric pressure drop in one section of the dreadnought.

The fact that someone managed to get close enough to cut a hole in the hull and invade is concerning enough, but more important is the implication. Someone who considered themselves well-equipped enough to assault a _Formorian Dreadnought_ is loose inside the ship, and hasn't been noticed up until now.

You report this to your commander, who swears something vile over the line before cutting off communication. A few seconds later, as you are about to give new instructions to your men, the commander announces the presence of intruders over the general alert system.

The response is immediate. The internal defense force surges through the doors of your central area, spreading out to defend the most critical of ship systems: the core generator. Your men accompany them, setting up temporary covers and barricades before rigging certain non-critical systems to act as surface booby-traps for any intruders that come this way.

Meanwhile, in your position as chief engineer, you are paying attention to shipboard communications. There is little excitement, except for the fact that every five minutes, another section leader of the dreadnought fails to respond to roll-call.

Somehow, the enemy that is attacking the ship is wiping out the troops guarding each section before they can raise any sort of alarm. Your blood chills. What kind of assault force could operate with that effectiveness against alerted troops?

It takes a moment before you suddenly realize that the machines have fallen silent. You blink in surprise before instinctively checking the engineering readouts at your station. No, critical systems are still operating properly. So why have the sounds faded away? Why has that most soothing music to an engineer disappeared?

Through the window, you notice confusion among your visible subordinates, and they too have taken notice. One of them keys his communicator. But though you should hear static and a transmission from the man, there is silence. You take off your headset and eye it. The lights signaling operation are still on, but you hear nothing from the device.

You key it and try to speak into the microphone, to tell the man below that he cannot be heard, but you are stopped by the absence of your own voice. You can't even hear yourself speak.

What is this?! What kind of phenomenon could stop sound itself? In empty space, no sound can be heard, but there is still atmosphere. Even waving your hand around in your face generates a small breeze as proof.

The doors to the left of the control booth open up, and humanoid figures enter. Only you notice, out of the corner of your eye, as the figures raise what are unmistakably firearms and begin shooting.

Grineer armor is nothing to sneer at. Ferrite alloy is one of the most effective forms of ballistic protection in existence. But the newly appeared enemies fired single rounds into their targets, and the armor _shatters_ like glass. You have seen crumpled, flattened, cracked and dented Ferrite, but never have you witnessed it obliterated like this. Moreover, the enemies, whom you now recognize as Red Veil operatives, are not thrown back with recoil. Those pistols do not have the kind of ludicrous kinetic energy to achieve this feat on their own. Something else is responsible for this.

Because there is no sound, the other soldiers have no warning. The four Red Veil operatives fan out and precisely target every Grineer in the room, no matter how well concealed they are. Such precise workmanship suggests that they were already well aware of the location of each soldier, which should be utterly impossible. But then the door opens yet again, and a new figure emerges.

This one towers above the Red Veil operatives, and instills a far greater terror within you than the former. While the Red Veil are feared for the brutality and randomness of their attacks, a Tenno is a far greater threat.

And this one is a Tenno. Of that there can be no mistake. It appears almost waifish, with incredibly thin and delicate-looking limbs. It has an unusual golden mask, shaped almost like a trident, with four thin hair-like energy extensions. And it's carrying a golden colored pistol with a considerable amount of smoke drifting from the muzzle, indicating strenuous use.

The Tenno lazily regards the massive ship core while the Red Veil regroup around it, and then it holsters the pistol, raises both hands, and smashes them onto the floor of the generator room.

Tremors spread from the point of impact, indicative of the waifish Tenno's tremendous strength. But the tremors don't stop. They continue, wave after wave of kinetic force, traveling through the ship and wreaking utter havoc on the delicate core systems. The vibration through the floor knocks you off your feet. As you lay there, your own armor begins to shake, resonating with such force that it actually causes you pain.

Distantly, you note that you can now hear the system alarms. Sound has returned, and the computer is alerting the now-deceased crew to the damage suffered by the core generator. But the sound is beginning to 'tear' and fade. The searing pain about your head from the tremors tells you that your skull has reached its resonant frequency. Your disintegrating nervous system blends the sounds and sensations into a cacophony as your vision is cut off from your eyes exploding.

And then you are welcomed, at last, with eternal silence.

 **Saryn is up next, the warframe that inspired me to create this concept. Then I have to figure out how to make VAUBAN of all things terrifying. That's a challenge.**


	12. Saryn

**Quite a bit of foreshadowing in this one.**

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**

 _The Contagion_

Working for Alad V has a reputation of being hazardous to one's health. The mad scientist of the Board of Directors is infamous for his disregard of such petty concerns as worker safety, even amongst the Corpus. If not for the usefulness of his inventions, or his status as a convenient partial enemy of all factions, the Board would have had him terminated long ago.

But Chairman Bek has elected to let the madman live and cause chaos of all kinds within the Origin System. So much the better if market chaos is one of those, for in chaos lies opportunity.

You have the misfortune of serving both of these unforgiving masters, and in times of rest, you question which one is more worthy of fear.

One does not become the Chairman of the Board, the cutthroat of cutthroats, without vision or ruthlessness. Frohd Bek, conniving scoundrel though he may be, obtained his seat through the most legitimate means possible for a Corpus: by taking major risks and crushing competitors underfoot in business ventures, rather than outright theft or scamming the way Nef Anyo conducts himself.

But Alad V…though the Grineer, the Tenno and even his fellow colleagues despise him more than they do each other, he has thrived in spite of their attempts to hinder or eliminate him. Naturally, the same cannot be said for his subordinates. You have witnessed firsthand the disregard the man has for the safety of his employees.

Fortunately, you have made your way up to become one of his project overseers. Yours is a more cushy assignment, running a containment facility far off the beaten path which houses items and experiments that are dormant or inactive. It also allows you the freedom to report to Bek on the dealings of his troublesome colleague.

Recently, you learned that Alad V has been hunting for warframe components. One large shipping container has been secured to the point of paranoia. Alad V has forbidden anyone except himself from opening the thing, and your best covert efforts have yielded no headway into learning what is inside. All you have learned is that the container has a life-support system, which implies that its cargo is a prisoner of some kind.

You reported as much to Bek via your hidden communications, and are currently waiting for an acknowledgement as you look over the site surveillance in your office. An environmental alarm begins blinking on the console. You order a team to examine the area. Among the mad scientist's demands is the condition that all his laboratories be kept pristine, lest contamination affect his experiments. The damned alarms are extremely sensitive, and constantly go off as a result.

Minutes pass, and you wait for the word from your team, but it never comes. And now, there are multiple alarms going off. You start paying more attention. One is an anomaly, multiple indicates something wrong.

However, just as you move to activate the site alarm protocols, the console shorts out in a flash, with the arc flash flipping you over as you instinctively push your chair backwards. You scramble up and quickly examine the console. No good. The unit is fried.

You exit your office and begin to trace the cables, searching for the source of the short, and you wind up at the site generator unit. Just this morning, the unit was pristine and in good working order. But now, something is _eating_ at it. It almost resembles mold, and it is spreading over the components and conduits very fast. The plastic insulated sections almost melt away with an acrid bitter odor, while the metal turns pitted and sloughs away in flakes. The generator is literally falling apart before your eyes.

A door is blown apart, and the site security team enters in a rush. Naturally, in the event of total power failure, their first and only priority is to secure the facility against attack. The officers report to you on the situation. The area in question has gone black. No response from the team investigating. Others are regrouping and withdrawing to the warehouse.

You nod and order them to set up the defenses before noticing that one technician is reaching out toward the generator. You try to shout a warning, but the man has already touched the non-functional piece of equipment.

The effect is immediate. The "mold" jumps onto the unfortunate man's hand and begins eating through his suit. Panicking, the man stumbles backward and flails against his colleague, spreading the mold as flecks fly off and land on more team members. You note that in the space of twenty seconds, you can already see the bone of the man's fingers exposed to the air before even the ossified material begins to decay.

The chaos spreads rapidly, too rapidly for the team officers to control it. In a panic, one officer triggers his nullifier, and miraculously, the field kills the mold inside.

The affected personnel, seven in all, are immediately quarantined while you struggle to get a grasp on the situation. Whatever that "mold" is, it ate through machinery, caused component damage, and is clearly lethal to living tissue. But somehow, the void-based nullifier system protects against it.

Void-based…like the void magic of the Tenno…

Could it be that a Tenno is here? And locked inside that storage container, they are seeking one of their own held prisoner?

As if in answer, another door is blown inward, and a new figure enters. This cannot be mistaken for anything other than a Tenno. It appears "hefty" and feminine, and its skin has the same shade as the "mold" that destroyed the generator.

The officers order the team to open fire. A hailstorm of searing energy smashes into the form of the Tenno, hammering it until it explodes. You narrow your eyes behind your visor. Something is wrong. Since when do Tenno go down that easy?

The officer with the nullifier suddenly gasps and chokes. You spin around in time to see his helmet go flying, trailing blood behind it.

There stands the Tenno with an arm pulled back, and the tip of a fleshy whip sailing backwards over its shoulder. The ancient warrior used the distraction to get in close and decapitate the only source of protection against that damned mold your team had.

Continuing the motion of its arm, the Tenno brings the handle of the whip near its left shoulder, before snapping it across. The tip of the weapon slices through the air, and cuts into the protective suits of multiple team members. Because of their personal shields, they are only scratched. But mere scratches are enough.

The injured members in question scream in pain as the visible cuts immediately turn necrotic, dropping their weapons and clutching the affected areas. Another slash, and now it is your turn to feel the pain. It's as if the whip is coated in a neurotoxin.

As your nervous system begins to shut down, and your body begins to decay along with that of your comrades, the Tenno ignores your suffering and moves toward the container. Your body won't even let you grab your sidearm so you can take advantage of having its back turned to you. After a moment, the Tenno inputs a security code and opens the box. You see the barest glimpse of its contents.

Another Tenno, strapped to a gurney. This one appears to have been debrided of its skin. One arm twitches feebly, and a faint sound comes from the occupant.

The screeching of metal echoes in the warehouse as the first Tenno rips apart the restraints holding down its comrade, and then it raises the pathetic-looking shape and cradles it tenderly in its arms. In spite of your situation, you can help but think of how the Tenno looks more like a worried mother than a terrifying supersoldier.

However, that motherly aura soon vanishes, and an almost palpable raging undercurrent of energy fills the room. The tendrils that resemble hair around the Tenno's shoulders flail about as it frees one hand from its precious cargo and gathers energy in its palm. You close your eyes, knowing that the Tenno is about to exact vengeance against you and your team.

A cloud erupts from the Tenno's form, obscuring everything in the room with a toxic miasma. The soft tissue in your eyes begins to liquefy, and your breath of surprise becomes the last one you will ever take. The thin and delicate tissue of your lungs almost immediately disintegrates as the miasma pours down your throat. The decay of your body rapidly accelerates, and just before your eardrums turn into an organic goo, you feel your helmet simply fall apart and expose your head to the poisonous air.

Still, all things considered, this is a quick death. Better than becoming Alad V's next experiment.

 **Up next is Vauban, then Nova.**


	13. Vauban

**You know what snipers say: run fast, die tired.**

 _The Hunter_

Old orokin ruins are home to ancient treasures, lost technology, hoards of resources…and the weapons that guard them all. Neural sentries, energy traps, enslaved thralls, feral kavats, active turrets, and the accursed infested all take residence in such places, and all of them make life miserable for you.

The Queens have ordered your unit to seize the newest of the ruins for the glory of the Grineer Empire, and they are not ones to countenance failure.

But failure is all that you have experienced thus far. Right from the start, once your dropship approached, an energy beam speared the ship engines, causing it to crash land on the surface of the ruins. Oddly, the damage indicates that it came from above, meaning that something undetected by your force is probably waiting in orbit.

Crashing in enemy territory under distinctly unfriendly air cover is a poor start to any mission. So is having your communications severed as if you just stepped into a Faraday cage.

No transport, no way of contacting the rest of the unit in space, and no idea as to the kind of enemy resistance that awaits you, these three factors promised a very difficult ordeal in store for you.

And what an ordeal it turned out to be, you grimly reflect to yourself as you scramble through the ruins in a near-panic.

Your company leadership bit the dust when a rolling…ball of some sort came from out of nowhere and leapt at the commander, magnetizing itself to his chest. Before anyone could help the captain remove the robotic thing, there was a loud report of a sniper rifle, and the ball exploded in an instantaneous burst of electricity. The amperage was immense enough to flash fry the command element instantly. At least those lucky bastards died immediately.

You had taken the lead, ordering the rest of the unit to fan out and find cover. Strangely enough, there was no additional fire. You cautiously moved ahead into the ruins, with the entire company on tenterhooks, looking out for more of those strange balls, lest you fall prey to them again.

Something clattered in the midst of your left flanking element, and you look over just in time to see a familiar column of light come down from the sky and obliterate that unfortunate squad of grineer. The following concussive wave stunned your unit with tinnitus, and left you unable to detect the two flechette orb mines that sprang up until five of those projectiles speared you in the right leg.

The other surviving company sergeant, and your opposite number, uncharacteristically staggered as if struck from behind, and turned to run for better cover, only to slip and be abruptly launched off the cliff. Before he vanished, something lashed out of his back, and pulled five more members of the company to him, sending them all screaming to their deaths as they were dragged over the edge.

Desperate to get out of the danger zone, you threw yourself behind a crumbled wall as your men struggled to address the threat in a very disorganized fashion. You had hastily applied first aid to your leg, and had been about to issue orders to get the situation under control when you found yourself suspended helplessly in the air.

For a moment, you saw the reason. A very large glowing orb hung two meters above the ground, emitting a field that held the rest of your ravaged unit in place. Then the orb pulsed, and you found yourself flying away from them, ejected from the group. When you finally regained your bearings, it was just in time to see the ball pulse once more before what was left of your company was sucked toward it. And then that damned beam of light fell from the sky once more.

Screw this! You turned and ran. And you ran for more than an hour, sustained purely on adrenalin, combat stimulants, and sheer terror. Looking back, it was quite an impressive feat for a crippled degenerated cloned soldier.

There has not been a single sign of the enemy, but you did not dare to slow down. However, even your bolstered endurance has limits. And now that you have had to stop from exhaustion, you remember that you have no way out of these ruins, and no reinforcements are coming to save you.

Then another of those damned balls appears. It slams into your injured leg. Utterly spent, you have no way to maintain your balance, and you spin around before collapsing on the ground. The ball then magnetizes itself to your chest, and begins to pulse with electricity, thoroughly incapacitating your nervous system.

Meanwhile, you hear thunderous footsteps, and you strain your neck to look past your forehead.

A Tenno. Of course it's a Tenno. This one gazes coldly at you with blue lights for eyes on its blocky gold-trimmed helmet. A large machete hangs from its waist, and the twin arms of a sentient conculyst are strapped to its back as a trophy. It wields a massive rifle, with the barrel extending almost down to its feet.

The Tenno chuckles wordlessly, a deep throaty rumble as it casually aims the rifle at your helpless prone form.

But at this point, you're too tired to care.

 **Sorry it took so long to do this. Next up, Nova, then Nekros.**


End file.
